#odysseas elytis

[greekbooks-poll]

[epestrefe]

Η ηλικία της γλαυκής θύμησης

Η θητεία τοῦ καλοκαιριοῦ Στὰ πεῦκα καὶ στὰ κύματα Μὲ γυμνές ὧρες Ποὺ κρατᾶν στὰ δάχτυλα τὴν ὕπαρξη Κυματιστή Ξεφυλλισμένη Ἐλεύθερη Σὰν φῶς Ὤ! λυγισμένη εὐωδιά Ἀγαθό μονοπάτι

Ὀδυσσέας Ἐλύτης «Προσανατολισμοί»

[la-scigghiu]

Eravamo ti giuro allo specchio posso dirlo è successo per caso abbiamo attraversato l'istante ci siamo davvero passati davanti . devo aver visto che ti avvicinavi eri dietro di me sentivo il tuo sguardo posarsi caldo sulle mie spalle . mi hai abbracciato chiudendo gli occhi così mi hai stretto anche con gli occhi e io ti guardavo teneramente sorridere come se, lo sai tu solo come . mi avevi negli occhi io non lo so come e dentro lo specchio io tenevo noi.

.🦋.

🔸Odysseas Elytis

[lagrimanegra]

I know that all this is worthless and that the language

I speak doesn't have an alphabet

Since the sun and the waves are a syllabic script

which can be deciphered only in the years of sorrow and exile

And the motherland a fresco with successive overlays

frankish or slavic which, should you try to restore,

you are immediately sent to prison and

held responsible

To a crowd of foreign Powers always through

the intervention of your own

As it happens for the disasters

But let's imagine that in an old days' threshing-floor

which might be in an apartment-complex children

are playing and whoever loses

Should, according to the rules, tell the others

and give them a truth

Then everyone ends up holding in his

hand a small

Gift, silver poem.

[manwalksintobar]

Marina of the Rocks  // Odysseas Elytis

You have a taste of tempest on your lips—But where did you wander All day long in the hard reverie of stone and sea? An eagle-bearing wind stripped the hills Stripped your longing to the bone And the pupils of your eyes received the message of chimera Spotting memory with foam! Where is the familiar slope of short September On the red earth where you played, looking down At the broad rows of the other girls The corners where your friends left armfuls of rosemary. But where did you wander All night long in the hard reverie of stone and sea? I told you to count in the naked water its luminous days On your back to rejoice in the dawn of things Or again to wander on yellow plains With a clover of light on you breast, iambic heroine. You have a taste of tempest on your lips And a dress red as blood Deep in the gold of summer And the perfume of hyacinths—But where did you wander Descending toward the shores, the pebbled bays? There was cold salty seaweed there But deeper a human feeling that bled And you opened your arms in astonishment naming it Climbing lightly to the clearness of the depths Where your own starfish shone. Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged And time is a passionate sculptor of men And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope And you, closer to it, embrace a love With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips. It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think of another summer, For the rivers to change their bed And take you back to their mother For you to kiss other cherry trees Or ride on the northwest wind. Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or tomorrow, Facing the dangers of the rocks with a hurricane hairstyle You will say farewell to the riddle that is yours.                            

[kobiamu58]

Poet Odysseas Elytis and Nobel Prize 1979

Greek poet, essayist, and translator Odysseas Elytis received the 1979 Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetry, which masterfully blends Greek tradition with modernist elements to depict the universal human struggle for freedom and creativity. His poetry often explores themes of freedom, human dignity, and resilience. Other prevalent themes include love, spirituality, and the quest for purity and creativity. https://worldliterature24.blogspot.com/2024/06/nobel-laurate-1979-odysseas-elytis.html

[cyclades-islands]

Explore the impressive Odysseas Elytis Amphitheater, enjoy the stunning beaches and take some beautiful evening walks in Chora!

📍Ios island (Ίος) - @cyclades-islands 💜

📸 by: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAWbgYTOW_2/?igsh=MWk4cGRzYjdqbzY2Zw==

[mavra-matia]

Always us the light and the shadow.

- Odysseas Elytis

[vulnerasti-cor-meum]

astrology will observe your bed and will base its prognostics on your despair; you are beautiful like despair like the paintings the bourgeois detest and will buy in the future with billions.

Maria Nephele, Odysseas Elytis (A. Anagnostopoulos transl. 1981)

[greekbooks-poll]

[epestrefe]

Η ισόβια στιγμή

Πιάσε την αστραπή στο δρόμο σου άνθρωπε· δώσε της διάρκεια· μπορείς! Από τη μυρωδιά του χόρτου από την πύρα του ήλιου πάνω στον ασβέστη από το ατέρμονο φιλί να βγάλεις έναν αιώνα· με θόλο για την ομορφιά και την αντήχηση όπου σου φέρνουν οι άγγελοι μες στο πανέρι τη δρόσο από τους κόπους σου όλο φρούτα στρογγυλά και κόκκινα· τη στενοχώρια σου γεμάτη πλήκτρα που χτυπούν μεταλλικά στον άνεμο ή σωλήνες ορθούς που τους φυσάς καθώς αρμόνιο και βλέπεις να συνάζονται τα δέντρα σου όλα δάφνες και λεύκες οι μικρές και μεγάλες Μαρίες που κανείς πάρεξ εσύ δεν άγγιξες·

Οδυσσέας Ελύτης, «Μαρία Νεφέλη», εκδ. Ίκαρος, 1978

[theoutcastrogue]

The Bodysnatching of the Month of May

May's corpse was snatched and taken by the warlocks of the deep. It was carried and then buried in a tomb under the sea.

Down a deep, deep well they tossed it, in the dark they had it sealed, but the fragrance filled the darkness and took over the Abyss.

— translated irreverently adapted fragment of a poem by Odysseas Elytis; painting by Yannis Tsarouchis (detail)

[sgiandubh]

A stupid shipper's guide to the Peloponnese, part 2: Mycenae, my Craigh na Dun

Forgot to mention: Praxiteles' statue of Hermes still has faint cinnabar traces in its curls. Which makes that Hermes a ginger, hehe. You simply can't make this shit up. /end of poetic justice moment

Anyways. The very minute your car, bus or bike crosses the Corinth Canal, even if you cannot see it from the modern, German highway, you just know you are in the Peloponnese. Everything changes: the light, the landscape and even the silence. In summertime, cicadas reign supreme: mercifully, after a while, you don't hear them anymore and sleep like a log in daytime. Summer nights are always for something else, in this land.

Odysseas Elytis, my favorite Greek poet, knew something about all this:

"Drinking the sun of Corinth Reading the marble ruins Striding across vineyards and seas Sighting along the harpoon A votive fish that slips away I found the leaves that the sun’s psalm memorizes The living land that passion joys in opening."

So really, forget about the islands, spare some unsung, almost unknown gems. The heart of this country beats South of Corinth, and once you've realized this, there is no turning back.

Olympia and her little sister, Nemea, are all about joy and cheer and the sort of organized happiness the Ancient World was so adept at. But at Mycenae, we hit a different chord. It is home to this guy - the filthy rich, ruthless, rogue King Agamemnon.

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair":

Mycenae and I go back a couple of years and too many repeated, insistent expeditions to count properly. Even Zorba the car knows the way by himself, so all I have to do is wait for the right week-end, climb at the wheel and enjoy the scenery. Many dinners in town and embassy receptions have been traded for the simple joy to be awaken by kyria Panagiota's impertinent rooster (across the street) at 5 am and open my room's French doors to this view:

A mix of olive groves and vineyards, with the odd cypress tree randomly thrown around. 354 inhabitants. Two churches. Two stone bridges, built somewhere at the narrow end of the Stone Age and still treaded by tractors, cattle and unsuspecting pedestrians. And also this:

The Lions' Gate (the real one, not TPTB related), as photographed by me the day before yesterday, for the umpteenth time, proudly standing at the end of a steep-ish climb cursed daily in tens of different languages by thousands of tourists. As for Angkor Wat, you'd have to see it at sunrise or sunset to fully get the magic, in complete silence. Patience and determination will certainly be rewarded. For this place is rich with all the memories of those who once called it home, back in the day when it was one of the most powerful political and trade centers of the known world. The Cyclopean fantasy of a demi-god, which is all about flawless ownership of space and aggressive affirmation of one's worth. Or, as the obscure Alpheus of Mytilene aptly put it in an epigram, written some time around 0, AD: "a city built by giants and passing rich in gold".

Pic taken by me in late October 2021, that blessed age of innocence when I had no frigging idea of Craigh na Dun. Different light, same arresting view that plunges all the way to Argos and farther away, to the sea.

Cats rule the world. We know that (January 2023):

And then there's the Vault, half a mile down the road. If the Lions' Gate is about Space, the incorrectly named vault - a mausoleum, really - is about Time. Or rather the complete irrelevance of it:

Because I am not only stupid, but also nuts, I sometimes flip a coin, once inside. All binary answers were proven to be eerily accurate, with time. But things like this only show themselves to the believer. Last question asked is still technically up for confirmation, yet I - along with all of you here - know already it's a yes:

And yeah, I did it. What the heck. I had the place just for myself, and that is rare. Wouldn't you?

Mordor, I don't care about your pearl-clutching reaction. There is poetry to be found in the most unlikely of places. Especially in the most unlikely of places.

Walking back, I challenge you to pinpoint an exact year. It is impossible and there is a reason to it. This place and this view are timeless, of course:

In an unexpected, involuntary homage to the Atrides, the 354 inhabitants of modern Mykines still bury their dead all around Agamemnon's Vault.

Around an almost icy jug of Retsina wine, I asked my treasured friend V, the archaeologist: do you really think they ever left?

Are you nuts? And what would we do without them?

Coming back to a sweltering Athens, just imagine my head shake in disbelief watching Lasagna Lady once again clinging to that poor guy's T-shirt, the bickering between C's stans about who is the most telepath of them all and the wailings about the lack of secksay content in Episode 7.

Seriously, Fandom? Is this the best you can give me?

Episode I am hurrying to watch, nevertheless. But first, the laundry. Fair's fair.

[atclouds]

Introductions

Im going to treat this blog like my personal poetic diary, Kafkaesque style, this is mostly to help me express myself more.

Its named after my favorite poetic collection, Maria Nefeli from the Greek poet Odysseas Elytis, that earned a noble price in 1979.

[liefst]

books i read in 2023

Sayaka Murata, Convenience store woman

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-five

Maryam Hassouni, Wat de fak

Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo

Margaret Atwood, The year of the flood

Isabel Allende, The house of the spirits

María Gainza, Optic nerve

Piet Paaltjens, Snikken en grimlachjes

Arthur Miller, Death of a salesman

Anja Meulenbelt, Feminisme: terug van nooit weggeweest

Feminism: en antologi

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

Caroline Knapp, Appetites: Why women want

Jean Rhys, Voyage in the dark

Euripides, Electra

Euripides, The Phoenician women

Euripides, The Bacchae

Jean Rhys, La grosse Fifi

Odysseas Elytis, The axion esti

Hilda Newman & Tim Tate, Diamonds at dinner

Julie Orringer, How to breathe underwater

Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the lawn

Jane Campion, The piano (screenplay)

Jean Rhys, Quartet

Emma Cline, The girls

Arnon Grunberg, Tirza

Karen Blixen, Ehrengard

Alain de Botton, Religion for atheists

Arthur Japin, De overgave

[anotherechoinherdream]

... The waves have heard of you

How you caress and kiss,

How you whisper your t’s and e’s

Around the neck by the bay;

The two of us are always this: the light and the shadow

You, always the little star and I the dark

vessel

You, always the port and I the lighthouse on the right....

(Odysseas Elytis, The Monogram)

🖤